Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1887-12-01
December 4, 1857.
TO THE YOUNG MEN.


TO THE YOUNG MEN.
Judge MunsOn Addresses the Young
Mems Christian Association - His
Subject, s'The Age We Live In and
the History We Make.D
Judge L. E. Munson of this city delivered
an able and interesting address before the
Young Mems Christian association in the
Adelphi building last night. His subject
was ''The age we live in and the history we
make" He said:
1--WE live in the harvest time of mind and
thought, in an age of marvellous discoveries,
of stirring times and big with momentous re-
suits. Desperate struggles and heaving con-
vulsions are spreading over the wide world,
tearing up or establishing the institutions of
men. The strong current of an emulous
competition dashes against the barriers of
monopoly, equalizing the chances of success.
The labor element antagonizes the element
of capital upon which it feeds, content to
live upon the husks of famine in order to
obey the blind behests of hoodlum strang-
er, and capital closes its doors against unjus
demands, the which lie still upon the shaft,
and the stream of prosperity passes idly by
till the conflict ends.
"Socialistic tendencies preached in mid
night halls ripen into deeds of anarchy and
bloodshed upon the streets. Prison doors
open TO receive LQ61f Q6VOLe0S ana Gl61r 11V0S
end in ignominy upon the scaffold.
''The tide of voluntary emigration bears
its thousands to new homes beyond the
bounds of their native State or country, into
new climes, new associations with new hopes,
new aspirations, new courage and new ex-
perienees to grapple with the affairs of life.
s'The law of intellectual progress and de-
velopment is from the abstract to the practi-
cal, from ideas to facts. from the blossom to
the fruit. A FESTIVE, working, practical
idea is the fruit of the imagination, as the
ripened corn is of the plants inner life. Gen
erations past were seasons of seed time, of
blossoms, ours is the season of fruit, of mans
intellectual harvest. Old speculative, senti-
mental ideas of the past have become great
practical facts in the living, energizing, vital
izing present"
The speaker detailed the great physical
development of the country. He spoke of
the labor saving machines in all the avenues
of life, the various sciences, of the telegraph
and telephone, steam, printing presses, civil
and religious liberty, the political condition
of the country and in fact of all things that
pertain to the growth of the country. He
contrasted the Russian government with our
own.
owe are living amid realities that crown
our age greater than prophet or seer foretold
or even dreamed of. The history of the
world contains no other instance of national
growth and development SO rapid or gigantic
or broad in its outlines and foundations, SO
uplifting in its tendencies, SO secure in its
results own.
1.-THE newspaper which comes to US with the
regularity of our morning meal has become
one of the main forces of civilization I am
not unconscious of the fact that there are
plague spots upon its surface; these are more
than counterbalanced by the good they do.
The newspaper is our schoolmaster.
In conclusion he said: F'Look upon the
past and on the future. Let not the past
cast its shadows upon us in vain, and let not
the future prove us faithless to our trust. The
years to come will be marked by intellectual
power, gigantic commerce, brilliant sci
ence and difusive Christianity. Humanity
will struggle for a fuller and higher
development. Let the old men fondly
dwell on the past, dreaming dreams.
The young men must see visions, visions to
come, and go forth to meet them. 1t is no
time for diversion, even though it be ele-
CANT. We must make labor and toll our por-
ton and passion. We must take the side of
truth in every question of politics, morals
and religion, and hold to it and stand by it
winning or losing. The feeble in intellect or
in purpose, the drone, the watcher of the
clouds and the winds, the time servers and
tide walters in the driftings of life, be for
whom life has but one charm in office and
one shame out of it. He who aspires to
nothing nobler than to-raise the dust in our
Political stadium, the Pennsylvania avenue,
by the arts, agencies and crooked ways en-
ployed to get there, OF he who through craft,
intrigue, deceit or talsehood hastens to get
rich, will be the contempt of the times. The
man of intellectual culture, consecrated to
truth, to moral courage, to philanthropy, to
honest living in the affairs of life, will be
the man of the times.
''Let us remember that nations as well as
individuals regulated by great moral
government, that high above all empires
roll the living wheels of Gods moral govern
ment, and that government can no more be
arrested than the stars in their march
through the skies; that what remains for
US is to study its course and shape our &C.
tions in accordance Herewith. The
mightiest of earthly empires have thrown
themselves across the external DEGREES of Je-
hoYah and have been swept like gossamers in
the path of whirlwind.
''Be warned, then, that the prevalence of
vicious principles, of popular immortality, of
injustice, of national wrong, of political cor
ruption, are plague spots which require no
sign from heaven, no oracle of woe, no wall
of departing angels to tell that the man, city
or nation is doomed.
F'Let us then, one and all, each for him
self, feel the responsibilities resting upon us
and let it be our highest aim to guard we'll
our hearts and the moral life of the nation
from ali corrupting, degrading agencies. and
aspire for purer life on the higher planes
in which it is our privilege to walk.
"Young men, the future will be crowded
with responsibilities and blessed with oppor-
tunities such as no preceding age of the
world ever crowded upon the attention of the
children of men. Select your reading with
care; cultivate the acquaintance of virtuoGs,
heightened, moral young men: shun as
sociations of the licentious; keep your
thoughts pure in the silent watches of the
night, and let the sunlight of day stream in
to your souls the healthful influences of a
pure, virtuous life, and your future shall be
radiant of hope and immortality shall crown
you an heir of the kingdom.
F'Permit me to add that the past read
Alright teaches what is substance and what is
shadow; what is truth and what is fiction.
The past is but an epitaph, a chronicle of
those who were and are not. What are all
the generations she holds up to us, with all
their intellect, their beauty, their pas
sion, their achievements, their pride!
What are they but one mighty
funeral procession which time has marched
as it is marching US to the grave. look
back through the perspective and wander in
meditation amidst its silent armies and I
seem to have entered the world seen in vision
by the Hebrew fathers, where all along the
illimitable graves sleep the daughters of Pha-
raoh's nations-Egypt and Assyria, Elan and
Mespete, Tubal and Tyre, Sion and Athens
and eternal Rome, and other names of power
which once glittered in pomp-taking their
long repose. The mighty with their swords,
the beautiful glittering in mockery amid cor
ruption, the bard on his broken Tyre which
will be walked by the zephyr breezes of the
world no more. / look at them; they regard
me not. speak to them; no echo but the
voice of history answers back from their 81
lent realm. To them the world of life is
naught; to them the sun shines not, nor sea-
sons roll.
"Young men, do you see the moral have
attempted to draw from the retrospect? If
not, I point you to the muse of history as in
imagination she rises before me at the close
Of this hour. behold her standing over the